This like many of the Child Ballads & many other trad ballads many contain the "moral of the story". The versions may differ but the moral (usually) stays the same. Don't cheat on your spouse or with someone's elses spouse, they may bury you. The Twa Sisters, sibling rivalry, the mother & the penknife, etc. The difference in the versions suit the singer, listener, the regional culture. These are not the soaps of yesteryear but in a way they had their multi uses & passing on morals orally as a growing up guide was one of them. Nic's version is as well or better if it suits you personnaly as any of the other well done versions. When the versions travel sometimes they get watered down, sometimes they get spiced up. Sometimes it depends on where they travel to, sometimes it depends on who those versions are getting transported with. The story usually stays the same & the the morals usually do to, thought sometimes ovee time both may get lost in the passing of time travel. So the changes & differences don't detract or enhance from the ballad so much as our personnal take of each of the versions of the ballad appeal to our own physc. Granted there are poorer & richer versions but putting thata aside it doesn't make one better than another. An example would be Sir Lionel. In the American verisons the mystical & supernatural is almost completely missing but the versions Abraham Bailey is not a lesser ballad because of it (though it does retain something of the older European elements), moral on that one being it doesn't pay for the supernatural in ballads to mess with mere mortals, someone is always badder & they come along, eventually,,,, joke).

Barry